


Approaching Dawn

by skieswideopen



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: F/M, Off-screen Character Death, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skieswideopen/pseuds/skieswideopen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Urs has a question for Nick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Approaching Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brightknightie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brightknightie/gifts).



> This is set well after the end of the series, and goes AU before "Ashes to Ashes" in that Urs (and Nick) survive.

"Do you ever regret it?" Urs asks. 

She fiddles with a stray paintbrush as she speaks, head down, not quite looking at him. Nick doesn't blame her. He knows how he must appear to her, how strange it must seem that the youthful, fair-haired police detective she'd once known has been replaced by an old man with spotted hands and an unsteady gait. Nick himself is sometimes shocked when he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and sees an ancient stranger gazing back. He wonders occasionally whether that moment of surprise is a consequence of all those centuries of eternal youth, or whether mortals experience the same lack of recognition on spotting their own aged visages.

Urs, of course, hasn't changed at all, save in those ways dictated by the fashions of the day and the demands of whatever life she's currently living. Nick catalogues the differences automatically: the upscale, slightly conservative attire, the subtle make-up, the expensive nail designs. She seems to be doing well for herself, and he's glad of that. Nonetheless, she's still clearly _her_. The blonde curls, the pale skin, the deceptive air of fragility...they're all exactly as Nick remembers them from Toronto.

Toronto. It's been a long time since he's thought about those days. Or those people.

He wonders abruptly what brought Urs to his door. Is she here for herself, or is she acting on behalf of another? But surely Lacroix would come to gloat himself if he thought there was cause to gloat. Surely Lacroix would--

She asked a question, Nick recalls. About regrets. He sets down his tea. Forces himself to focus.

Urs has turned her attention from the paintbrush to the painting above the old-fashioned fireplace. Does she know enough to spot Da Vinci's work? Certainly she must at least recognize the subject of the painting.

Regrets.

"I regret some things," he says honestly. "Some days."

He lets his gaze drift from the painting down to the fireplace mantel, which is devoid of the family photos he once expected it to one day contain. No children, no grandchildren...none of that other, more common form of immortality. There's only one photo up there, a sunlit snapshot of the graceful, dark-haired woman who had died three decades earlier in a car accident that would never have claimed her if she hadn't chosen mortality along with him. Old pain now, the edges long since worn smooth.

Urs follows his gaze, contemplating the picture solemnly. "You never remarried?"

Nick shakes his head. "Never met the right woman." It hadn't been a conscious decision on his part; just...it still astonished him how quickly time flew even when you had a limited quantity of it. He'd thought that somehow it would be different as a mortal--that each second would carry more _weight_ , that knowing time was ticking down would lead to more vividness, more meaning--but if anything, it had gone faster. And one day he woke up and realized that he was old, truly old, as he'd once never expected to be.

He looks past the fireplace to the bookcase with its modest collection of titles bearing his name--the name he'd reclaimed when he reclaimed his mortality. It's an indulgence, printing physical books in this age of digitization, but one he can afford. And what else is there to spend his money on?

"Felix thinks he's isolated the compound," Urs says, and at last Nick understands why she's here.

"The one that--?"

"Yes."

"The community must be in an uproar." He tries to imagine their reactions. Tries to imagine what Lacroix has to say about it. It was one thing for two vampires to manage through luck and perseverance to achieve mortality. But for it to become readily available to all…

"There's been some discussion," Urs allows.

"Colourful discussion, I'm sure." 

Urs smiles. "A little." She wanders over to his desk, runs her hand along the smooth wood--real oak, another indulgence. "I used to want to die," she says. "The night Vachon brought me across...I asked him to kill me. I was so angry when I woke up."

"But you chose to live," Nick says. They all have a choice. He remembers that much.

Urs nods. "If I'd been able to do it myself, I would have done it already rather than begging strange men to do it for me. I was so afraid…"

She pauses, and Nick waits.

"There are a lot of things I hate about being a vampire," she says at least. "Never seeing the sun. The killing. Wanting to kill. Knowing it will never end. And yet--" 

She turns away from the painting. Looks at him directly for the first time since she entered his house. "Do you regret it, Nick? Giving it all up? Knowing how much you'll miss out on?"

"Sometimes," he says. "But I would have regretted it more if I hadn't done it." 

"Even now?" Urs sits down in the chair across from him. "I mean, now that..." Her voice trails off.

"Now that I'm dying?" Nick offers. 

Urs gives an embarrassed shrug.

He's been dying since he regained his mortality, of course, but he has to admit that the fact has taken on greater immediacy as of late. They'd offered him counseling along with the diagnosis. He'd turned them down. Months, they'd said. Maybe weeks. Nick can make a list now of all the things he won't live long enough to see. Specific things, like the next World Series, or the first meeting between the head of the UN and the extra-terrestrials that the _Beagle_ has just discovered.

"It was the right choice," he says firmly. It's true. The gains of mortality have far outweighed the losses, and the chance to finally see for himself what lies beyond this life is worth sacrificing the opportunity to see aliens walk on Earth. Although if he could have had both…

"So you think I should take the cure."

"I think you have to decide for yourself."

Nick gives in to one more indulgence after Urs leaves, and settles into his chair to relive old memories as he hasn't allowed himself to do in years. Familiar faces flow past his mind's eye. Natalie. Schanke. Tracy. Stonetree.

He wonders if any of the others will seek him out for advice as word of the cure spreads. If they'll want to see for themselves what consequences the choice carries. He's avoided the community almost entirely since his transformation, but he thinks it might be nice to see some of them one last time. Catch up. Reconcile.

Forgive.

Maybe it's time to take one last trip.


End file.
